


Unnamed

by EmpyrealFantasy



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, FKM Fill, Kink Meme, M/M, Multi, Robot/Human Relationships, Sad Robots, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Spoilers through Father, Wasteland Makes Soulmates Complicated
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-09 11:27:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5538161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpyrealFantasy/pseuds/EmpyrealFantasy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He realized, staring down at the jumbled, blocky PE12mNV that was scrawled across his wrist, that he was still an anomaly even two hundred years in the future.  Unmatched.   He dug his thumb into his pulse over the lettering, closing his eyes.  Unmatchable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wishes come true, not free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... because I have no willpower, I couldn't help starting this when a prompt literally took over my soul.
> 
> Prompt was just for Soulmate AU in Falloutverse, so here we are. OP also seemed fond of Preston, so I have tried to at least integrate him in as the super!friend he is, but I apologize if he feels awkward as I've not done much with him at all in game (I pretty much just run in circles with Nick, Hancock, and Deacon because I have a type :P).
> 
> Also, why am I using Into the Woods lyrics for chapter titles? I don't know. It was the first song to pop into my head. Specifically _sometimes people leave you halfway through the wood; do not let it grieve you, no one leaves for good_ because dead wife singing to husband about taking care of their baby... *sigh* I blame the whole Nate/Nora/Shaun dynamic for the weird chapter choices herein.
> 
> This fic shouldn't be exceptionally long: it is about 10k currently, shouldn't be more than 20k/5 chapters. This version is extended/cleaned up from what's being posted on the kinkmeme.

When they were in college, Nora’s Name appeared.

She was the average age for a woman to get one; theirs usually showed up a bit earlier than mens’ did.  It was a maturity thing, scientists thought, same with how puberty usually set in sooner for females than males.  People generally got their Names sometime in their early twenties, with women leaning earlier and men leaning later.  Some got them early; Nate’s grandmother had always told the story of getting his grandfather’s Name when she was only fifteen.  In a twist of fate, his grandfather hadn’t gotten hers until he was nearly thirty.  Thankfully the two of them had known one another already, so there hadn’t been a long wait for either of them.

They’d always hoped they’d get one anothers’ Names, he and Nora.  They’d been best friends for years, romantic partners for nearly as long.  They just worked so well together that it seemed predestined.  Sure, it wasn’t exactly the romance of a lifetime… but they worked.  He loved her more than anything.  Adored her.

“Why, Nate?” she sobbed, fingers clenched tight in his shirt. He could feel the damp of her tears on his shoulder. “Why?”

No matter what the movies and romance novels said, Names didn’t mean people automatically worked out.  A good chunk of Matches were platonic, there was still abuse and cheating even amongst those that were romantic.  It would have been nice for the system to mean everyone was happy all the time… but that wasn’t realistic.  Even so, he’d have wished almost any outcome but this.

Jeffrey Melancamp, her wrist said in spidery letters.  A few years ago, this might have been cause for celebration; she’d had a crush on Jeff through most of high school, after all.  But Jeff had been killed in a car accident over a year prior.  They’d gone to his funeral.  This was like mourning him all over again.

He held her, shushed her, stroked her lovely dark hair. 

“Hush now, it’ll be all right.”

“It isn’t fair,” she said between hitched breaths, shaking her head against him. “Of all the Names, why his?”

He hated himself just a little for counting himself lucky, in that moment.  So maybe it was karma when his own Name came in a year later.

* * *

Nora stroked the smooth skin of his wrist, an analytical frown pinching her face.  “We should really take you to a specialist.”

“What’s the point?” he jerked his arm out of her grip, grabbed the leather wristband he’d bought to cover it.  “I don’t want to be a science experiment.”

“You wouldn’t be—just because we don’t _know_ anyone without a standard name doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen.  Remember that movie about the guy whose name was a man’s—“

“Nor…”

“His Match had started living as a woman years before they met, though, so even though he fell in love with her he was waiting for his match and if she hadn’t gotten his name—“

“Nora!”

“Or what about the book on the lady with the weird, nonsense script that was actually an ancient language, and she travelled through—“

“ _Honora_!”

She cut off, glaring through her long lashes.  She hated her full name with a vengeance. “What?”

“My life isn’t a romantic comedy or a novel. I can’t travel through time and people don’t get stuck with a jumble of nonsense as their Name other than me.  I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but I’d rather just pretend I don’t have a Match out there at all.  I don’t need one.  I have you, and you’re all that I need in the world, all right?”

“I don’t like not knowing.”

He huffed a laugh. “You think I do?”  He sat on the bed beside her and snapped the wristband into place.  “The Army doesn’t care what my Name is.  They just need more men.  I don’t want to spend the rest of my life playing Mister Fix-It.”

“I don’t want you to enlist,” she said for the billionth time, crossing her arms over her chest. “You know how I feel about this stupid war—“

“Nor, baby.  It isn’t about belief in it.  It is about my duty as an American.  I’m a strong, capable guy.  They need guys like me.”

“You are doing just fine at the garage, though!  You don’t need to sign up with them—“

 “Do we have to argue again? I’ve made up my mind.”

“Don’t I get any say in this?” She sighed, cutting her eyes away. “I don’t like it.  I’ll be getting my degree in just a few months, then I can take the Bar exam and start practicing.  Even in the meantime, my internship at the police department on top of your salary is bringing in enough to keep us afloat. There’s no reason to sign up, especially not with the war heating up. I don’t want to end up a widow before our first anniversary.”

They’d married the year before.  They just worked too well as a team to pass it up.  Nora’d wanted to wait until his Name came in, just in case he had a chance at a romantic match, but he knew better.  Looking at his wrist now, at the jumbled, blocky PE12mNV that made him ill every time he caught sight of it, he was glad they hadn’t bothered.  He snapped the clasps on the leather, covering the jumbled mess that wasn’t a Name at all. 

He kissed her on the brow. “It will be good for us.  As a family.  I know you want kids, Nora.  I do too; I just want to make sure I’m making the world safe for them, is all.  How can we bring a child into the world when we don’t know if the Chinese could be on top of us any day?  When we don’t know where they might strike next? ”

“It isn’t safe!”

“No, but neither is sitting here.  I’d rather be in the Army for a few years, help make the world a safer place, and make sure we have the money to support a growing family.  Don’t you want to get one of those houses over in Concord or Sanctuary Hills?  I know you liked the one down the street from my mom’s place most of all.”

“I can’t change your mind? There’s so much that could go wrong.”

“Things could always go wrong.  I’d rather be active and trying to make things better than sitting here, moping about my lack of a Match, and working at the garage for the next forty years.  We’re gonna build a great life, baby.  I promise you.”

* * *

“Oh no!  Where’d I go?”

Shaun squealed as Nate ducked beneath his line of sight.  He picked at a bit of something stuck to the bottom of the highchair tray as Shaun kicked his chubby feet.

Nate peeked back over the rim of the tray, eyes covered.  “Shaunie?  Where are you?”

“Fa!” Shaun cried out, slapping the tray to punctuate. “Ba ba!”

Nora came around the corner with her arms loaded down with plates, Codsworth joyfully bobbing behind her with a steaming casserole dish. “C’mon, my big boys.  Dinner time.”

Nate and Nora ate as Codsworth hovered beside Shaun and tried to shovel some pretty gross looking goop into his mouth. “Come now, young sir, open the hatch for the spoon… or something to that effect!”  The baby was so far wearing more than he’d eaten, Nate thought. 

“Paaahhhh!”  Shaun protested, waving his hands, one palm steadily beating a tempo against Codsworth’s hull.

The robot hummed in agreement. “Indeed, indeed.  Very true.  Now open up for this—erm, mum?  What is this?”

“Peas,” Nora said dryly, spearing some salad on her fork.

“How… delightful,” Codsworth murmured, his arms rotating to bring a small dish towel to the fore.  “Here, young sir, let me just—“

Nate snorted and watched his wife curse as, when Codsworth tried to pat the boy’s face, Shaun blew an exceptional raspberry, sending puce semi-liquid ooze splattering over both the robot and Nora. “Oh, god dam—darnit.  Darrrrrrrn.  Son of a biscuit.”

“It isn’t like he’s old enough to copy the swears yet, Nor.”

“So sorry, mum!” Codsworth cried, whirring.  “I’ll get you a clean towel!”

“Thank you so much, Codsworth,” she said with a helpless smile.  He was so glad he’d managed to save enough to get help for her before he’d deployed.  He hadn’t wanted to leave her alone when she was pregnant.  She turned to him and rolled her eyes. “Better to get in the habit of not cussing now.  I was old enough when Justin was a baby to remember him shouting ‘shit!’ at the top of his lungs at his second birthday party.  Repeatedly.  Mom was pretty pissed at Dad.”

“Your mother would have been pissed anyway, I think.” He polished off the last few bites of his dinner, scooping Shaun out of his seat as Nora and Codsworth tried to pat goop off her blouse in concert. “C’mon, messy munchkin.  Time for a bath, I think.”

After a few more fruitless pats, Codsworth turned to gather their plates instead. “I shall begin the dishes and seal away the leftovers!”

“Thanks, hun.  Thanks, Codsworth.”

“No biggie. I’ve got catching up to do.”  He’d been back in Sanctuary Hills for a month now, but the way his son had grown still yanked at his heartstrings.  But it was a balm, as well; on the nights when the nightmares woke him screaming, or he couldn’t stop hearing the whine of missiles in his ears, he only needed to yank the old rocking chair his grandma had gifted them over to the crib and watch the boy breathe to feel human again.  Alive.  He held Shaun at arm’s length and raised a brow at Nora.  “And you might as well go get ready to take a shower after.  Don’t you have a date with Phillip tonight?”

Her eyes rounded. “Oh, crap!” He laughed as she disappeared down the hall, cussing loudly all the way despite her earlier admonishments. 

Their relationship wasn’t normal by other folks’ standards.  They were friends foremost and not Name Mates, though that was becoming more common.  He was glad he didn’t live in a time when one could only marry the one Named for them, else he’d be… well, he didn’t want to think about where he’d be.  Lifetime military if he was lucky.  Already in the ground if he wasn’t.  He certainly wouldn’t have Nora as the rock that kept him sane and an adorable baby boy with his green eyes and (thankfully) Nora’s nose.

His fingers dropped to trace the metal cuff Nora had gotten him for his birthday this year. It was etched silver with swirling patterns, and he spent a lot of time running his fingers over it.  He hated seeing the not-Name under it, and the cuff let in air under enough to let him take it off even more rarely than his old, leather band. 

“Tonight’s the night, by the way!”  Nora called from the bedroom.  “I’m going to see if Phillip’s open minded enough to have some fun with the both of us rather than just me.  If you won’t go find someone, I’ll bring them to you, dangit.”  She’d been trying to convince him to get back out and find someone to date, but he just wasn’t up for it.  Not after Anchorage.  Not after realizing just how suited to a life of death and destruction he was.  The guilt ate him.

He kissed her goodbye as he left for her date with the stunningly handsome older Defense attorney she’d met on a case, bouncing Shaun on his shoulder.  The sun was sinking below the horizon, taking the late summer heat with it. This was enough.  He didn’t need some big romance, some exciting life.  This was good enough.

* * *

About a week after waking up in the Vault, when the situation fully set in, Nate could only laugh until he cried at the pitiful nadir of mockery his life had become. 

* * *

Nate was up to his elbow in a turret, cussing as he tried to reach the component that was malfunctioning and causing it to randomly target people that approached it from between a ninety-two and ninety-six degree angle.  The breadth and sturdiness of his hands was usually an asset, but in this case it was just causing him issues.

“God damn stupid thing!”  He wiggled his fingers, trying to touch his screwdriver to the off-kilter connection. “Just a little—“ A shock ran up his fingers as he brushed against something inside, making the hairs on his arm sizzle. “Fuck!”

“Having issues there, General?”

He peered back over his shoulder at Preston, the man’s face pinched into a badly smothered smile.  He rolled his eyes. “Nah, this is great.”

“Taking off that fancy bracelet of yours might help.”

He flinched, slowly extracting his hand and circling the band with his thumb and forefinger.  He’d noticed folks were even more open about their Names than ever.  It had become rather rare for Matches to be found because of mortality rates and the lack of travel.  Before the bombs, finding a Match had been a point of gossip and part of life for a good majority of folks. A person’s Name was a private, beautiful thing.  In the Commonwealth, though, since it was so rare to ever find one’s match, people mostly left them bare in hopes of increasing their slim chances of finding the one they Matched.  Who knew when a caravan worker might know the person whose Name you had? Or when a merc who’d used a codename for years might see their birth name on someone’s wrist?

He stroked his fingers along the patterned metal, glancing back at Preston.  “Ah, I suppose it might help.”

“You seem like you don’t much want to, though.  If I recall, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without it.”

“Yeah,” he said lowly.  “My wife got it for me a few months before the bombs fell.  I’ve only taken it off a dozen or so times since then.”

It wasn’t the whole story, obviously.  He imagined that Preston wanted to ask why he’d wear it in the first place, but he refrained.  He was a better friend than Nate deserved. “Welp, I’ll just be over at the guard post.  Let me know if you just need me to find someone with smaller hands.”  The man was too intuitive by half, giving a gentle smile and quickly making his way out of Nate’s field of vision.

He undid the clasp slowly, moving the bracelet aside and snorting at the paleness of the skin underneath.  The last months in the sun had darkened him, brought out his mother’s Mexican heritage on his skin, giving him a golden glow. The space where his band normally rested might as well have belonged on Nick, though, for all the pigment it had. 

Thinking of Nick made his heart swoop and squeeze.  God, he was such an idiot.  Two hundred years on ice, desperate weeks and months searching for his son, and he manages to get a crush on a freaking robot along the way.  Nora would find this hilarious.  He’d been back in Sanctuary helping out around the settlement for two weeks now, specifically because he’d needed a break from golden eyes tracking him and the way his insides filled with butterflies like he’d regressed into his teens.

He traced the letters and numbers on his wrist, frown pulling at his mouth.  With so many Names uncovered he’d been keeping an eye out since he’d started traveling the wasteland.  It was curiosity mostly, but partially he knew it was the ever-unquenchable wish to understand.  No matter how many years he’d been telling himself it didn’t matter, that he didn’t care that he was the only person he’d ever heard of without a match at all… well, somehow, the hope he’d figure it out never really died. 

The first time he’d seen someone with letters and numbers he’d nearly had a heart attack.  He’d been with Piper, poking around in a small shanty town that had been built up around the Bunker Hill monument, when he saw a woman with J3-42 on her wrist.  He’d stared long and hard, though thankfully only Piper had noticed.

It meant the woman’s match was a synth, she’d said. First letter was the sub-generation, then the production run, then the unit in the run.  Letternumber-numbernumber.  He’d hardly even had a chance to get his hopes up before Piper had unknowingly dashed them.  He’d kept glancing at people’s wrists helplessly since, but it was just like it had been before the bombs.  Even Preston had a synth designation, though the man had just smiled at him sadly when he’d haltingly inquired.

He was still an anomaly even two hundred years in the future.  Unmatched.   He dug his thumb into his pulse over the lettering, closing his eyes.  Unmatchable.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To warn, there are likely to be some comments of other pairings throughout the fic. I'd ♥love♥ to hear your headcanons for what matches could be (though, for realism, it is far from perfect in this AU).
> 
> Right now, I'm batting around Piper/Cait but contentiously & bitterly, Preston/Sturges with no real confirmation between platonic/romantic, Hancock not getting his Name until he Ghoulified, and his skin (and many other ghouls) keeps him from reading it clearly, MacCready and/or Deacon with their dead wifies. Any thoughts? Just headcanon for fun? :)


	2. You have to grope, but that's the way you learn to cope.

 

“I swear, Nick. You can shoot things at a hundred yards, but you can’t manage to get the ash into the ashtray to save your life.”

Nick glanced up at Ellie, brow quirked. “Well, I suppose if it really was a life or death matter I could manage.”

“I could take a screwdriver to you.”

He smothered a grin, looking back down at the casefile in his hand. “Nice try, kiddo.  I know you like me too much.”

Ellie sighed, skirt brushing his arm as she sashayed over to grab his ashtray. “Yeah, yeah.  I guess I might.”  She dumped the contents into a trash bin and slipped it back by his elbow. “When’s Nate coming back, by the way?  It’s unusual to have him gone for more than a day or two and you’ve been holed up in here for a week now.”

The mere mention of the man made Nick’s power core cycle faster.  He tamped down a flinch as a shiver went through his wiring.  “Not sure.  He needed to go check in on the Minutemen at Sanctuary, so at least another day or two.”  He frowned, slumping a bit in his chair.

Ellie, of course, noticed. “Surprised he didn’t take you with him, boss.”

“Trying to get rid of me?” he said dryly.

“Trying to avoid the question?”

Damn.  “Ah, well…”

She grinned and patted his hat before moving back to her own desk. “Adorable.  Seriously.  I’ve known you for most of my life, Nick.  Seeing you mooning over some pretty face is fantastic.”

“I’m not _mooning_ ,” he insisted. “It’s just nice to have someone who cares so much about the fate of others, no matter who they are.  Having a partner again is refreshing.”

He could hear her snort but didn’t turn back to look at her.  “Uh huh.  But he is pretty, right?”

“Human aesthetics—“

“Blah, blah, blah.  You think like a human, don’t give me that.”

He refused to dignify that with an answer.  Even if Nate was, indeed, incredibly pleasing to look at.  He’d have to lose his optical abilities altogether not to see it; he was solid and healthy in a way so few were in the Wasteland, clear-skinned even where he was scarred.  But it was a combination of his eyes and smile that really did it.  When someone shone that brightly even under a layer of road dust, it was hopeless to consider them anything but beautiful.

Not that that mattered, of course.  Because Nick was an old robot and had no use for whether humans were pretty or not.

Even when they smiled at him in ways they didn’t smile at anyone else.  Even when they didn’t bat an eyelash at his mechanics.  Even when they treated him with unabashed affection.

“Well, anyway,” Ellie said, obviously moving on since Nick was refusing the answer.  But the knowing chuckle that she gave made him hunch in his seat. “Hope he comes back soon.  I like knowing you’ve got backup out there.  If I have to beg another stranger to rescue you from another bad guy—“

“Not gonna happen.  I let my guard down and let the monotony of easy cases get to me.  I won’t let it happen again.”

“Thank you.”

After a few minutes more of shuffling the same papers back and forth, Nick admitted defeat. “Want any lunch?  I’m going to go catch up on information in the market.”

“Noodles would be great.  Have fun gossiping!”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t bother to argue, pulling on his jacket. “Be back in a few.”

The air was warm as he stepped outside.  Warmer than he’d expected for a spring day.  He didn’t have to worry about sweating and his coolant system could keep him from overheating in most temperatures, sure, but his sensors were sensitive enough that it wasn’t comfortable to be hot.  He strolled through the gate at the end of the lane and hooked a right into the market past the little home Nate was thinking about buying.  Nick kept insisting he could just stay with him at the agency, but the man _did_ drag home a lot of junk.  Maybe a place to keep it wasn’t an awful idea.

He sidled up to Takahashi and tipped his hat. “Afternoon, bud. Everything all right?”

“Nani ni shimasu ka,” he said diffidently, swaying back and forth just a bit.

“Anything new going on around here?”

“Nani ni shimasu ka!”

“Good, good.  Glad to hear it.”  It was more about the body language with Takahashi.  Occasionally tone as well, though most humans wouldn’t notice the difference.

“Nani ni shimasu ka?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.  Ellie’s hungry.”

The Protectron moved to obey, stirring the pot of noodles and pulling down a bowl simultaneously.  Nick leaned a hip against the bar and scanned the marketplace for anything out of place. Percy was out in Myrna’s place even though it was daytime, but she liked to take days off occasionally so that wasn’t too out of place.  Polly seemed to have more business than usual, with a few travellers bunched up in front of her stall.

“Someone!  Come in here and help!”

An enraged scream had Nick whipping around, staring at the crowd that was now forming in front of Becky Fallon’s shop.  He darted around them and slipped in the door behind the security guards that charged in.

“Who are you?!  Where is Clarence?”

Ann Codman stood over her husband, pistol out and aimed at his head.  Becky was glaring from the door, hanging back after having summoned assistance.

“Missus Codman, please put the gun away—“

“This isn’t my husband!”

Nick edged around a guard and held up his hands. “What do you mean, Ann?”

She scowled at him with her usual disgust, nose turned up. “Can’t you sense your own kind, synth?” She pulled back the hammer on her pistol, gesturing with it to where Clarence was spluttering incoherently on the floor. “I planned to give him a different shirt to try on.  He was without his jacket and his wrist was exposed.  That is _not my name_.”

Ann and Clarence Codman were one of the few Matches in the city; they often used this fact to show their superiority over the lower city denizens.  Nick looked down where the man’s wrist was exposed and sure enough, though he couldn‘t read it from where he was, the Name was far too long to be Ann Rit.  Nick was surprised for more than the obvious reasons; the Institute was generally very careful to replace only the yet-Unnamed or at least the Unmatched.  That the newest version of synths tended to develop a Name after creation wasn’t something he thought they’d counted on, but once they’d figured it out they’d programmed them to be careful about exposing their wrists.

“Now where is the real Clarence?!”

“Ann, calm down—“

“Where is he, you half-witted replica?”

Nick darted forward as the synth sat up, sneering. “Oh, do shut up, Ann.  I’ve been here for nearly a year and you hadn’t noticed a damned thing!”

She pulled the trigger just as Nick tried to reach for her gun.  The guards flinched back as the back of the man’s head blew out. The exposed matter was riddled with circuits.

“Missus Codman—!”

She dropped the pistol and stood tall, sneering at the assembled guards. “Well?  Take this thing away.”  Her eyes turned to Nick, narrowing. “You, synth.  You will find my Clarence.  I will pay handsomely.”

“Uhh,” Nick considered reminding her that no one came out of the Institute.  But she assuredly knew that; she wasn’t a kind or good person, but no one could call her unintelligent.  Instead he tipped his hat. “I’ll let you know, ma’am.”

He slipped out as Fallon began demanding they clean up the mess on her shop floor.  Takahashi stood swaying at the counter with a bowl of noodles in his hand, staring towards Nick.  “Nani ni shimasu ka?”

“Sorry, bud.  Thanks for keeping it ready for me.”

He took the bowl and made his way back for the agency, thinking deeply.  The Institute was either getting brave or stupid; either possibility was disconcerting. This was the third replacement that had been found in the last month in Diamond City.  Nick shouldered open the door with a frown, nodding to Ellie’s greeting and handing over the slightly cooled noodles.

“Boss?”

“Clarence Codman was replaced sometime months ago.  Just got found out.”

“Damn, another one?”

Nick sat and kicked his feet up on his desk. “Yep. Found out because he obviously had a Name that wasn’t Ann’s.”

“It took her months to notice that?”

“Says a lot more for the state of their relationship than anything else,” he said dryly. “But then, being Matched doesn’t guarantee happiness.  It seems like that these days, with how rare it is, but over the years I’ve seen a whole lot of them be anything but.”

“Didn’t you have a Match?”

He frowned and his flesh fingers automatically touched the space where a Name once had been.  The metal was cold. “The human Nick did, anyway. She died a long, long time ago.”

“Well, but if synths have different names—“

He cut her off. “That’s the human ones, kid.  I had my chance at a Match and let a bad guy get her.”

Her pretty face was twisted in a frown; he hated seeing her upset. “Don’t you want to hope a little?  I mean, what’s life without it?”

“Just life.  Hope’s a dangerous thing in all forms, El.  You realize that as you get older.  If you expect the worst, you just end up pleasantly surprised when the outcome isn’t utter shit.”

“That is truly awful, Nick.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly.  He crossed his ankles and reached out to grab his pack of cigarettes, tapping one out to light.  “Sorry that I’ve seen too much awful crap to be an optimist, kiddo.”

She looked like she wanted to say more but resisted.  Her shoulders slumped. “Fine, fine.  Anyway, I have a new case I’ve vetted out: Abbott’s got a little mystery he wants you to look into.”

“On we go, then.”

 

* * *

 

“—two, three, go!”

Nate grunted and pushed as hard as he could, heels dug into the soft dirt and his shoulders screaming.

“Almost there!  Hold it steady, we’ve almost got it—“

He tuned out Sturges’s stream of encouragement and kept an ear open for the all-important confirmation of completion. He could feel a bolt digging into his spine a seam in the metal rested.  His feet were slipping; he dug them in more firmly and tipped back his head to keep the sweat from running into his eyes.  He’d put on a lot of muscle mass in his shoulders and thighs over the months he’d been fighting the wasteland, but holding up a metal wall all on his own while someone welded it back into place wasn’t exactly easy work.  It was hot, to boot.  It was the middle of spring already and felt like it was even later.

He cringed and forced himself not to think about all the wasted time.  Fuck.  He needed to get stronger, to find a better gun so he could go find Virgil in the Glowing Sea.  But the last time they’d tried the journey he’d nearly gotten eviscerated by a deathclaw.  Only Nick getting between them had saved him, and the blow had nearly taken off his leg.  He’d had to basically carry the synth back out of there until they’d been able scavenge parts to repair him.  The whole situation had scared the shit out of him; the idea of losing someone else after losing literally everything had terrified him.

Nick had been half convinced he was having a breakdown, the way he’d acted after.  He’d been babbling and frantic and nearly inconsolable as they retreated. The whole situation had just brought home a combination of his physical and emotional weaknesses.  He wasn’t all-powerful, that was for sure.  And his fear of abandonment and loss was nearly crippling if he focused on it too long.  Such as it was in those hours after seeing Nick go flying, leg at an impossible angle as he hit the floor in a heap, leaving Nate to scream and beg and only kill the deathclaw still bearing down on the synth with a lucky shot. 

He’d hightailed it out of the Glowing Sea as soon as he’d managed to lever Nick up against him.  He was heavy due to his metal substructure, but since he wasn’t filled with dense biological matter it at least kept him from being uncarryable. The going had been slow, but between his heart-stopping panic and the adrenaline coursing through him, he’d managed to get them to safety. He recalled little of the journey beyond the way he’d been nearly praying the entire way, his agnosticism notwithstanding, for Nick to survive.

He had to stop running from the problem, though; Virgil would not suddenly come to him, he was sure.  Nor would the Glowing Sea get less treacherous.  Nor would he suddenly stop finding Nick so consumingly amazing.   He’d halfway considered getting someone else to go with him, getting a Hazmat suit for Preston or asking Hancock if he had time to tag along.  But frankly, the idea of continuing this journey without Nick’s sturdy presence at his back was more terrifying than any emotional insecurity.

“Got it!” Sturges crowed, rounding the small shack and swiping at his brow.  He left a streak of grease across his forehead.  “Damn, that was harder than I thought it would be.  Stupid Raiders.  How do they always know where we hide the dang generator?”

“I’m guessing they do reconnaissance,” Preston said, appearing suddenly. “It’s too uncanny.  I mean, the things are loud and all, but in the middle of a firefight the Raiders shouldn’t be able to hear it clearly enough to head right for it.”

“Good timing, Preston.”  Nate made a face at his friend.  “Great job being just in time to not sweat buckets helping me hold up the wall.”

He grinned and tipped the brim of his slouch hat. “Thanks, General.  High praise.”

“Well, that concludes my list of things I wanted your thoughts or help with, Nate.”  Sturges used a dirty rag to wipe his hands and face, offering it over after.  Nate made a face and shook his head.  He’d go take a dip in the river before bed, rads or no.  He stocked up on Rad-X and Rad-Away for this very reason.  “Unless you think we need more shelters at this point, I think we’ll be good while you’re gone again.”

He had to quit stalling. “Good, good.  Any word on places that need our help? I will be starting back over to Diamond City tomorrow, then down south after that.”

“Hmm, follow me,” Preston said, motioning with his head.  “I have notes I’ve been keeping.”

He waved to Sturges and trailed after Preston’s long strides, cutting through the old playground to the house the man had claimed as his own. “I sent out a group to the Drive-In after Roberta’s supply wagon didn’t come back last week.  Hopefully she is just delayed there.  Also, the ghouls at the Slog asked that you stop by sometime soon, but it isn’t urgent.  Just wanted some thoughts on crop production and to see you again.  You apparently left quite an impression on them.”

Nate snorted; the long night and dozen bottles of pilfered booze he and Hancock had toted over last month likely had most to do with that.

They reached the rickety, salvaged desk Preston used, covered in scraps of paper. “Hmm.  Where is—“

“I need to get you some empty file folders,” Nate said dryly, grabbing a precarious stack held down by a small rock. “This is kind of scary.”

“Don’t rearrange those!” Preston scolded. “I have a system!”

“Is it ‘I’ll find everything eventually’?  Cuz—“

Brown eyes rolled dramatically. “No.  That stack,” he said, motioning to the one Nate held. “Is crop yield reports.  The one above it is stuff about able-bodied fighters. The one to the right is how many guns are at each settlement.  The one next to that has ones that might be either—“

“I get it, I get it!”  Nate couldn’t help but laugh, setting down the stack carefully. “Still, I’m getting you folders and dragging a nice, old world filing cabinet into town.  You need a good one with rollers and smooth-pulling drawers, with lots of folders to organize with.”

“That would be… you don’t have to do that.”

“But I want to.”

Preston smiled, the shy one he got when he thought Nate was being too nice.  He liked it when Nate was too nice, no matter how he scolded. “Well, we’ll discuss it later.  I know you have things to do this week.  Ah!  Here we go.  There’s a settlement halfway between here and Diamond City that’s run by robots—you might have heard of it?  Graygarden.  They’re having some sort of issue.”

“Robots?  Like… Synth-robots or Codsworth-robots?”

“Not sure, never been there myself.  The way people talk it could be either.”

”Huh.  All right, then.  I’ll stop there on my way out to grab Nick and see how urgent it is.”

“Thank you, General.  And I mean that seriously; thank you for everything you do.  You don’t have to take time out like this to help fix buildings with Sturges or plan that new plumbing system you’re insisting on.  But you do.  I really—I admire how above and beyond you’re willing to go.”

Nate clapped him on the shoulder, grinning. “I take my role seriously, and I’ve never been much for delegating.  I know you were kind of desperate when you made me General, but I really believe in the Minutemen.  I want to see us work, you know?”

Preston’s serious look made his grin drop.  A hand rose to clasp his shoulder in return. “With you, I really believe it is possible.  You made me believe anything is possible again, at a time when I seriously wanted to throw in the towel.  I don’t think there’s a single thing you set your mind to that you couldn’t achieve, Nathaniel.”

Nate hid the way he blushed with a faux disgusted expression.  “Ugh.  I am never going to get you calling me just Nate, am I?”

“Not sober, anyway.  Now get out, I need to get these supply plans ready for the group going out to the Co-Op.”

After a cooling bath (plus a dose of Rad-Away) and a quick drink at the miniature bar one of the settlers had entrepreneurially set up, Nate headed for his bed with a new bounce to his step.  He may not be nearly so positive as Preston was, but how could he not be more confident when someone believed in him that much? 

Besides, he seriously missed Nick.  For all that he’d been running away from his feelings, it wasn’t like that made them fade.  Nick was probably one of the best people he’d ever met in his entire life, pre and post bombs.  Someone who could love people so deeply despite all the prejudice he encountered, who could be driven to help even the most ungrateful…  It made Nate’s heart swell.

Crush or no crush, Nate considered himself lucky to have someone so amazing in his life. He needed to man up and stop being a baby about his affections.  Nick cared about him, truly, and that was more than enough.  He didn’t need to be able to kiss him or wrap his arms around him as he so dearly wished to sometimes to share in the true bond they already shared.  He was greedy to think he needed to take their relationship farther than it was.  He was fine. Romance was not a necessity for love.

Besides, he had a whole lot of other things on his plate.  Shaun was still out there, healthy if not well, and even if he didn’t know he needed saving Nate had a responsibility.  And on top of that, there were so many people that his repair skills and pre-war knowledge of electricity, plumbing, and construction could help.  He often wound up feeling like he needed to have himself cloned to get everything done, with all the piles of work ahead of him… but he could do it. With people like Preston and Nick behind him, he really believed he could accomplish something.  He could find Shaun.  He could make this work. He swore it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay; the next chapter on Unintended has been driving me effing crazy and has blocked everything. :P I had so much inspiration, still have so much theoretical inspiration, but there's so much of it that one pothole is making the whole thing collapse.
> 
> But I still managed some of this, at least! And I think I've figured out how to do the other... maybe. :P Thanks again for the support!


	3. Every knot was once straight rope.

“Shh, stay down,” Nick hissed, metal hand splayed over Nate’s chestplate. “I’m getting movement on the horizon.”

He stayed as far down as he could in power armor, awkward and clunking as he was in it.  For someone who had trained in covert ops and spent the last months sliding through the shadows whenever possible, doubling his mass and slowing himself down in armor almost negated the added protective benefits it gave.  But since the armor was also his defense against the heavy radiation around them, he couldn’t have really left it behind.  It was either this or not even having his usual slapdash armor under an inconvenient hazmat suit.  Nick had not allowed him to even consider that.

“Damn, there’s two of them,” Nick grumbled, bringing his head back around the collapsed wall they hid behind. “Looks like we’re halting here for a few minutes.  No way that we’ll get this close to being done and wind up with you eaten.”

“I’d be pretty hard to chew with all this metal,” Nate said dryly, tipping his helmeted head. “You know, I took out a deathclaw only a week out of the vault.”

“Taking after Deacon now?”

“I’m not lying!” Nate huffed, shifting his weight to balance better. “One wound up in Concord somehow.  Used some crappy power armor and a minigun.  Also running.  I did a lot of running.”

“Regardless, after our last encounter with one, I don’t think I like our odds.  I like you in one piece, doll.”

Nate was glad the helmet hid how he blushed. “Yeah, yeah.  Same to you.”

Nick peeked back around the corner and let out a hiss. “Shit,” he said in a bare whisper. “They’re coming closer.”

“Back up, let me take a look,” Nate breathed, hoping the microphone wouldn’t output the sound too loudly. “I’ll let my HUD analyze them.”

Nick looked conflicted. “If we move that much there’s a chance they’ll hear us.”

“And if they get all the way over here, we’re toast anyway.  Come on, Nick.”

Nick scowled but acquiesced, sliding between the wall and Nate to give space for Nate to creep forward.  He tried to keep aware of his knees and elbows at all times to avoid any accidental collisions.  He could hear the deathclaws now snuffling and growling at one another in what counted as conversation between them.  He moved as slowly as he could in peeking around the wall’s edge, scanning the smoggy wastes of the Glowing Sea.

Damn, Nick had been right.  They were close.  He let his HUD and Pip-boy do their usual scans as he looked around the area, looking for some form of distraction or avenue of escape.  The nearest real structure was too far away to matter, though, and the terrain was quite flat in their immediate vicinity.  Only the collapsed wreck they currently shielded behind deviated from the yellow-tinged desert.

He checked his readouts and disengaged the speaker on his armor.  It would make him harder to hear for Nick, but it would keep the enemies from hearing. “Right, they’re pretty strong.  Not as bad as they could be, but pretty up there.  If there were only one of them, I think we could do it, but as it is?”

“Right, plan B then.”  Nate glanced back to see Nick sneaking back into the rubble of the collapsed building, holding out a halting hand when Nate moved to follow.  He tried not to fidget as Nick disappeared from sight, ducking around a pile of what had once been a staircase.  He turned his attention back to the two deathclaws that were happily roaming around the space surrounding the building, keeping track as they separated and came back together.  They seemed content to stay in his field of vision, at least, so he didn’t have to worry about one sneaking up behind him.

He glanced back every few minutes to check for Nick, but the synth had not yet returned. He didn’t hear any scuffle or sounds of a fight, though, so he tried to stay calm.

When an explosion rang out a few hundred yards away, lighting up the crest of a nearby hill, Nate jerked with wide eyes.  Fuck, what was that now?  The deathclaws roared and charged toward the noise in tandem.

Nate startled when Nick clicked his metal fingers against his pauldron, having appeared back beside him. “C’mon, let’s book it.  There was only one missile for that thing.”

“ _You_ did that?”

“You bet your ass I did.  Figured there was a good chance of finding something I could rig up to explode, at least.  A missile launcher was just a bonus.”

“You’re nuts.  You’re literally insane,” Nate wheezed through helpless laughter as they ran full-tilt for the remains of a Red Rocket station in the distance, the sounds of roaring falling behind them.

“You think I got this far in life being sane?  Ha!”

Nate’s HUD alerted him to the deathclaws having noticed them and taken up the chase, but they were already to the doors of the half-sunk gas station.  Nick yanked the door open just as a radscorpion burst out of the ground behind them, making Nate yelp and shove Nick into the building before following, slamming the door shut.

Nate leaned against the door, a laugh bubbling out of his throat.  He took a moment to breathe, the thumps of the radscorpion uselessly ramming itself in the door a counterpoint to the pounding of his heart. “Well, that could have gone worse.”

Nick waded out of the irradiated water, shaking out his jacket as he reached dry land. “Or better.  Better woulda been nice.”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Nicky.” Nate joined him out of the water, checking his readouts. “Oh, good.  It’s pretty insulated in here.”  With a hiss, he ejected himself from the power armor. He pulled at his shirt where it stuck to him; it was hot enough in the Glowing Sea due to the radiant radiation, but being in the power armor just made it worse.  He made a face at his damp stickiness.  “Gross.”

Nick snorted. “There may not be a lot of ‘em, but one benefit to being metal is the lack of human… inconveniences.”

“I’m sure a lack of sweat or shit is grand.  However, most of the rest of us are human,” he said with a wry roll of his eyes, bending over to stretch his back. “Ugh.  How’s outside looking?”

Nick leaned over to look out the mostly-closed slats of the window’s metal shade. “We’re gonna be here a while.  The deathclaws have killed the radscorpion, but they’re too smart to leave right away.”  He dug in his bag and came out with a bottle of clean water, tipping it to Nate. “Drink up, you’re looking peaky.”

“Thanks,” Nate said with a helpless grin, taking a long swig. “Well, at least it’s pretty well protected in here.  The garage would be the least fortified point, but by the look of outside, it’s buried.”

“Mmm,” Nick said, sidling over towards the garage door. “Better to check.”

With a rumble and a crash, the ground exploded at Nick’s feet as he moved down the hall.  He swore loudly and tumbled in a flail of limbs and jacket.  Nate dove for his armor where his shotgun leaned, hitting the ground on his knees and taking aim.  Two shots in rapid succession made the scorpion reel and scream, tail vibrating above it before it dashed at him.  Nate rolled to avoid a strike of its tail, fumbling to reload.  He could hear the electric zapping of Nick’s laser rifle trying to assist, but he kept pinging off its shell.

Nate spluttered as he ended up half in the water by the door, slamming the barrel breach lever to crack open the gun.  Casings ejected and he thumbed in two new shells as he scrambled to avoid another strike of its poison barb.  Nick got a good strike in the face of the scorpion, making it scream.

A glancing blow and a second, lucky shot from his shotgun sent the scorpion burrowing.  Nate hurried to reload and jumped onto a table to avoid being tripped when it resurfaced. He cut his eyes to Nick to find him balancing with one foot on a safe and the other on a workbench.  Golden eyes pinned him before Nick sent a wink. “Never a dull moment.”

He guffawed even as the radscorpion resurfaced.  But with the small space and both of them expecting it, within a few shots it was dead.  Nate jumped down and glanced around warily. “Any more around here, you think?”

“Could be.  But they usually nest in pairs, and if the deathclaws killed one and we killed one, we should have at least a little time before another one ends up near here.”

Nate huffed a sigh and jumped down off the table. “Woo, excitement.”  He quickly unbuttoned his usual green shirt, shrugging it off and wringing it out. “And as if I wasn’t already gross.”

He propped up his rucksack on the table, digging into the compartment he usually stuffed clothing into.  He pulled out a sequined red dress he’d thought one of the girls might like to have, a set of stained but functional knee-length shorts, a rare clean white button-down, and a leather jacket before finding his vault suit crammed at the bottom. It was better than being in soaked, radioactive clothes and chafing in his power armor even worse than usual.

“Nick, you need anything to change into? I have an apparent dearth of pants unless you want shorts, but I have a shirt and leather jacket that both should fit you.”  He glanced back, intent on checking how waterlogged the synth was to see how hard he’d need to argue if he turned him down, to find Nick staring intently.  Glowing eyes were trained openly on Nate’s exposed back and the look on Nick’s face was one he had never seen before; goosebumps immediately rippled across every inch of Nate's skin and a flush heated his cheeks.

It took several long seconds before Nick was tearing his gaze up to meet his eyes, flinching. “Uhh, no, I’m fine. It’ll dry before long. I can always just turn off any sensors that are irritated by the wet or friction.”

Nate cursed how easily he blushed, as he could feel his flush extending down his neck. “Well, tell me if you change your mind,” he choked out, feeling supremely silly as he knelt to unlace his boots.  He was a grown man.  He was in his thirties. He had slept with more people than he cared to admit to.  How could the idea of one man – one synthetic man – looking at him with his shirt off turn him into a blushing teenager? The lack of time and privacy to masturbate had to be making him more sensitive than he normally would be.  That was the only explanation he could think of that wasn't even more childish and embarrassing.

Nate shimmied out of the lower half of his clothes with his back turned, refusing to think about how he swore he could feel Nick’s eyes on him. He stuffed his chilled, bare feet into the stretchy legs of his vault suit, yanking it up around his bare ass before letting himself acknowledge Nick again.  The odd look was still in place, and with the glow of his eyes it was easy to track the movement of them as they flicked quickly in another direction when Nate looked back.

“That garage door secure?” he forced out, damning himself when his voice wavered.  The thought of Nick watching him sent a thrill through him that eclipsed his embarrassment.  Nate breathed in deep and forced himself not to think about it; the Vault suit didn’t leave much to the imagination on a good day, and without underclothes it was worse.  The last thing he needed was to humiliate himself with a hardon in something that would make his predicament obvious.  As it was he could feel his body reacting to the combination of embarrassment and arousal from his previous thoughts.  He prudently kept his back to Nick and kept shuffling through his bag, taking longer than needed to grab the water and rag he’d wanted to run over his upper body before pulling the upper half of his Vault suit up.

“Uhh—“ Nick’s voice was uncharacteristically rough, sending another chill down Nate’s spine. “Lemme check again to be sure.  Be right back.”

When the detective was gone, Nate took a moment to violently rub his hands over his face. He was not a teenager.  He was a grown man and could handle a crush, damnit.  He quickly shoved a hand down the front of his bunched suit and adjusted himself, though there was no inconspicuous way to have even a semi in this stupid thing.  He picked up his trousers and considered putting them back on over top.  Hot or not— well, really, that would be more conspicuous than even his hardon.  Nick knew how he hated being excessively hot or cold.  Fuck.

“Yeah, all’s well back here,” Nick called. “Found a box with some junk in it.  You might wanna see if you want any of this.  Got a few grenades at least.”

Nate quickly fished out the rag he’d been stalling to find, wetting it and running it across his sweaty forehead and neck, under his arms to at least not make the Vault suit disgusting within moments of pulling it up. “Be right there.”

He carried the bag in front of him in a convenient manner as he went down the hall to join Nick, finding him bent over the aforementioned box. “Separated out what I know is useful, but I’ll leave you to decide what ridiculous junk you wanna make me lug for you.”

“It isn’t _junk_ ,” he said wryly for the millionth time. “I can’t count how many times wiring, screws, and other stuff out of crap I’ve lugged home has helped me when I make things back at Sanctuary. Besides, with the weather this hot so early in the spring, I think we’re gonna need all the fans we can get to stay cool this summer.  I miss air conditioning already.”

Nick’s face scrunched up momentarily before comprehension dawned. “Ah, right.  I remember that.  I dunno, though.  You’re kind of magic with machinery.  Sure you can’t cobble something together?”

Nate laughed, rubbing the back of his neck to cover his awkwardness. “I’m not all that good.  But even if I could get one working – and that’d be a hell of a lot easier than building from scratch – houses just aren’t built for heat or air conditioning these days.  It would need to be sealed much better to make any real difference.  I could probably make a pretty decent super fan, though.  I could put it in the communal house so everyone could get some relief.”

“Sounds like a nice idea.  Lemme know if you need help; don’t forget that I’m pretty handy, myself.”

He hummed and smiled over at the synth even as he sorted through the junk in the box. “Yeah, I remember you saying that you used to do work around Diamond City.  What kind of stuff did you do?  You rarely talk about your pre-detective days.”

Nick was quiet for a moment, grabbing a Stimpack that Nate had uncovered and adding it to the ‘keep’ pile. “Well, there’s really no 'pre' days for me. I was always the detective at heart. That’s an old Nick thing, of course; it was always there. But in the early days, nobody woulda trusted me enough to help them, even if they knew they wanted a detective’s help.”

Nate looked back, frowning. “Sorry, Nick. Didn’t mean to—“

“Oh, hush. I know.  You never really consider me anything less than the person I kinda look like, so you forget sometimes.”

“I don’t forget,” Nate snapped, turning more fully and propping a hand on his hip. “I know exactly who and what you are, Nick Valentine. I think you forget sometimes, or you let others’ ideas get to you.  But you’re just you, Nick.  And nothing you’ll ever say will make me think less of you.”

Nick’s eyes momentarily seemed to flare a brighter gold before they flicked away, a wry smile pulling at his lips. “You’re hopeless, doll.”

“Pot-kettle?”

Nick’s grin went wider and he shook his head, nodding towards the box for Nate to go back to his sorting.  As soon as he did so, Nick continued. “Anyway, since they certainly wouldn’t trust a synth with their troubles, I just kinda helped where I could. Worked with the guy who did Abbott’s job at the time, mostly.  Nice older guy, was a bit off his rocker. Guess that worked to my advantage since he didn’t take issue with me.  This was, what, fifty years ago?” Nick paused for a moment. “Yeah, round there anyway.  It wasn’t long after the whole Broken Mask incident so people were still very on edge about synths.  I’d been an anomaly since I’d woken up on that trash pile, but with the discovery that synths could integrate so well into humanity, folks were just rightly more leery than they might have been if I’d arrived a few years earlier.”

“Doesn’t make it right,” Nate grumbled, knowing he’d be ignored.

Sure enough.  “Helped keep the wall as solid as we could in those days.  Upgraded the water system to give purified water to the whole city; that did pretty well to endear me to the residents.  Helped with some housing that used to be up in the actual seating areas, but due to corrosion it isn’t really safe up there anymore. Once the ghouls moved out no one tried to build it back up. Basically, though, when stuff broke, I’d fix it.  I had more mechanical knowledge than the older guy. He was more for construction, but I was good with the generators and the pumps.

“Anyway, like I said.  After I managed to track down that lady who’d run off after finding her Match, leaving her husband and kids behind, people slowly but surely started coming to me with more detective work than repair work.  It was nice to be back doing what I really enjoyed.”

Nate paused where he’d been loading the things he wanted into his sack. “Do you— I realize I was so eager to get out here that I didn’t make sure you actually wanted to come along this time.” He turned his face up to Nick from where he knelt, hands clenching on the bag’s rough canvas. “Did I take you away from work you’d rather be doing? You know you aren’t obligated, right? I mean—”

Nick was shaking his head rather vigorously. “Shush now, none of that. I’d sure as hell tell you if I wanted to be anywhere but by your side, dollface. The agency can exist without me just fine.  Ellie isn’t half bad at the work herself, and she makes sure anything urgent comes to my attention as soon as I check in.”

He bit his lip, watching Nick’s reaction closely. “You’re sure, though? This isn’t about thinking you owe me for getting you back from Skinny Malone, or some kind of misguided altruism?  You really want to be here, right?”

Nick’s hand scruffed over his hair playfully, smiling down at him. “I promise I do.  You think I’d go haring off into this shithole for anyone I didn’t care a hell of a lot for?”

Nate’s breath caught as he both absorbed the fond tone to Nick’s voice and came to realize the position they were currently in, he on his knees and Nick’s hand on his head.  He was helpless against the way he flushed, bright and sudden, voice thankfully not noticeably affected as he tried to divert attention. “Good to know. Wasn’t sure if I should be worried about my tab at the end of this.”

“Nah, I’m happy with the way you help out at the agency as an in-kind payment for any services rendered.”

Nate was going to hell and was a teenager, because immediately his mind leapt to other ways he could offer to be of… service.

Whether he’d reacted visibly to the thought or whether Nick had just then caught the shade of red coloring his face, the synth momentarily looked concerned and seemed to be about to ask after it.  But he then seemed to take in the position they were in as Nate had, making his eyes widen and his posture straighten, hand snatching back like he’d been burned. “Ah, need me to carry anything?”

“Nope,” Nate squeaked, hunching and scolding his cock with his mind.  Stupid, immature thing that it was, making him think ridiculous things at the worst possible times.  He clutched his rucksack closer on his lap. “Just going to rearrange things to keep organized. I won’t be long.  Need to check out that safe, too.  You can take a crack at it if you wanna.”

Nick retreated quickly. Nate wondered if he was horrified or, recalling the way his eyes had felt on Nate’s bare skin, just embarrassed.  He, himself, was definitely a combination of the two. How did he manage to get himself into these holes he couldn‘t climb out of?  Why didn’t he stop digging when they were still shallow?  He knew better than to groan out loud even with Nick out of sight; his auditory sensors were too good.  Instead he pressed the heel of one hand to his erection and the other over his eyes, cursing silently.

His luck was just fantastic.

 

* * *

 

Nick waved a hand to halt Nate at the bottom of the hill, eyes scanning the horizon.

“Don’t you dare tell me—“

He huffed. “Don’t worry, doll.  I’m just being cautious. Lemme peek up ahead before you go clanking over the hill.  We should be able to actually see the sky here soon, but better not to be caught out so close to getting out of here.”

The human acquiesced, tapping his gloved gauntlets against the metal thigh of his armor in agitated worry. “Be careful.”

“Always,” he said flippantly, ignoring the snort he got in reply. Nick crept up the hill and peeked at what lay before them.  He was right; he was pretty sure the freeway he could see in the distance was near the edges of the Glowing Sea’s affected area. He let his sensors scan for movement or lifeforms in the path as far as they could reach, finding a few feral ghouls lingering near a glowing refuse puddle but little else between them and the freeway.  He hoped that was the end of this damned area.

He looked back down to where Nate’s helmet was turned inerrably towards him. He felt guiltily glad for the bulky armor, as it kept his mind on the task in front of him. Nate was an ongoing, constant lesson on the dregs of humanity still lingering in Nick’s personality matrix. He had no reproductive or sexual drives, per se, but that didn’t seem to stop his wiring from going hot and his sensors making him feel oversensitive. He wondered what touch would feel like when he was in that state but forced himself not to guess.

He’d found himself physically attracted now and then over the years of his synthetic life, of course. There were plenty of lovely women and men roaming around, even in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He’d sometimes seen or known a human that had made his mind supply what he could do to them, had he still also been human. He had memories of having a cock, obviously, for all that he didn’t have one currently. There’d been a few times he’d imagined using his hands or handily articulated mouth to watch someone attractive get off, even without the anatomy to do so himself.

But Nate, as in so many things, was different. Nick couldn’t recall a time post-humanity that he’d felt so… electrified by a single person’s existence. The sight of bare skin drew his eyes without conscious decision, kept him enraptured and staring like some lecherous old man. He’d sworn his heart had raced and his mouth had gone dry as he’d watched Nate undress just an hour before… the way his muscles had flexed, the dusting of dark hair here and there, the dimples at the small of his back. That Nick didn’t have a heart, pulse, or anything similar didn’t matter, nor did the fact that his mouth was incapable of drying out unless he ran out of the bare amounts of lubricant needed to keep his tongue articulate. His hardware seemed very capable, in those moments, of synthesizing real, human arousal through his systems, for all that there was nothing for the arousal to effect on his person.

The sight of Nate, flushed and on his knees before him had nearly made the servomechanisms in his knees lock up entirely. And the way he’d been white-knuckled clutching his bag to his lap like he had something to hide— well, Nick had had to beat a hasty retreat to not use the hand still gently rested on the human’s head to seize him by the hair and pull him closer.

Damn, but he was being a delusional old robot. He needed to get this little infatuation under control. Attractive and wonderful inside and out or not, Nate was a friend. Probably the closest friend he’d ever had outside of Ellie, and she was more like his kid even as an adult. He couldn’t risk ruining that friendship with his awkward version of being fixated on the man.

He waved to let Nate thump and clank his way up the hill, the rusted old Power Armor he’d found in an abandoned train car loud in the whistling wind. Nick kept his senses on that group of ghouls to be sure they didn’t notice, but they seemed content to languish in their sad little puddle of radiation. “Looks like we’ve got a straight shot outta here. Let’s go; I am ready to never have to hear my internal Geiger counter whine ever again.”

“Somehow I don’t think you’ll never need it again.”

“Shush, you’re breaking my delusions.”

 

* * *

 

“Well hello, my crusading duo. Been a while. How’s kicks?”

Nate grinned at Piper and waved, pausing to ruffle Nat’s hair as he passed her.  She scoffed and flattened it back against her skull. “Not so bad. Survived the Glowing Sea, might have a fast-track into the Institute. Need you to keep your highly-awesome ears tuned for word of anything that might get the Institute reacting.  We’re looking to bag us a courser.”

Her eyes were wide. “Are you kidding me right now?  Blue, get your ass in my office. Interview!  Now!”

“No can do, sweetheart,” Nick drawled, grabbing Nate’s wrist to keep her from bodily hauling him away. “I’m sure he’ll promise you an exclusive after, but we can’t risk them getting wind of what we’re up to in the meantime. But you’ll keep an ear out, yeah? We did a preliminary check in areas known to have Institute activity, but it’s a little hit or miss unless they send someone out.”

Piper cursed, tugging at her hat with a consternated expression. “Teases. You both are rotten teases.  But yeah, of course I’ll do it. Anything for my favorite twosome.”

“Glad Cait isn’t around to hear you say that.  She’d likely deck me even with the context.” Nate’s grin was decidedly sly.  Nick tried his best to ignore the way it made his wiring feel like it was shorting.

Her expression faded to a moue of disgust. “We do not discuss that woman here. No chance.”

“Aww, she back in your bad books again?”

Nick snorted under his breath.  In the months Nate had known Piper, he’d not yet gotten a handle on how ‘off again’ she and Cait were more often than not.  Between Piper’s fiercely independent nature, Cait’s chems, Piper’s job, Cait’s job, and the stubborn-as-mules personality both women were saddled with, being Matched only meant they’d given a go at getting to know one another.  It had never made them get along in the slightest.

“She’s a damn liar and a junkie, of course she is!” Piper seethed, voice low so as to keep anyone from overhearing. “I won’t let her around Nat while she’s high, and since she’s always high that means she can keep her fucking distance. I don’t know what Creator saw in her to make her my Match, but he fucked up on that one.”

Nate looked sad, frown pulling at the corner of his mouth. Nick assumed his dismay had to do with losing his wife (and likely Match, if the way he kept his Name covered at all times said anything). “She’s had a hard life, Piper. Heck, who hasn’t nowadays?”

Piper shook her head and pulled away. “Not having this argument, Nate. Known her for years. She ain’t gonna change any time soon and neither is my mind.  Now c’mon, we’re heading for noodles.  Join us.”

Nate’s frown remained even as the group of them made for Takahashi’s stand for dinner.  Nick bumped his shoulder into him. “Come on, dollface.  Buck up.  You know Matches don’t all work out.”

Nick noticed that Nate’s fingers circled the bracelet on his wrist; he often toyed with it when the subject came up. “No, I know. I’ve seen some of the worst in people. Nora was a state prosecutor, so some of the stories she’d bring home about how awful folks could be, even to their Matches…” he sighed and shook his head. “Mostly I’m just sad for Cait and Piper. I’ve gotten to know then both separately.  For as tough a front as they both put up, they’re both lonely. And Cait’s not so bad once you skim off a few dozen layers of snark. She’s had it… seriously rough.”

“It’s been an ongoing saga, worst kept secret in the city.  Matches are rare, so everyone wants to know the details when someone finds theirs.” Nick pulled out a cigarette as Nate signaled to Takahashi for three bowls.  Piper was chiding Nat about something as they took a seat leaving space for Nick between them. “They met years ago while Piper was chasing a story, and they had a pretty inauspicious first meeting. Never recovered from it, really. There’s a chance they’ll give it another go someday, but you won’t change Piper’s mind on it head on, that’s for sure.”

“It’s a bit sad. Matches could be one of the few, shining good things left of humanity, after all that’s happened.  But it’s wound up such a rarity that it’s just another hope to be crushed.  I like seeing people happy, so I guess I get too invested.”

Nick smiled wryly, head cocked. “I dunno, with the complications of the Wasteland, I don’t think people finding their soulmates more often would make folks happier.  There’d be too many people outed as synths by their Names, or taken hostage to get to their Match, or the constant death hitting people even harder.  Think about your friend Deacon… he’s never been the same since he lost his Match, refuses to even trust others let alone get involved ever again.  For all that Jenny was the best thing that ever happened to me – to Nick – I just don’t think there’s much a way that Matches could properly work in this world for most folks.”

“That’s… even sadder,” Nate said in a bare whisper, fingers now tight where they circled the metal at his wrist. “I like to at least pretend that others can have a happy ending, even if I can’t.  You know?”

He found himself touching his bare metal wrist in solidarity. “Can’t fault you for that, doll.”

“Hey, hey, got any new stories for me?” Nat tugged at Nick’s sleeve, rocking herself more than she moved him. “You’ve been gone ages, Detective Valentine!”

Nick grinned and leaned back against the counter, drawing off his cigarette. “Ah, miss me kiddo?  I dunno, though.  All I’ve got are stories about deathclaws and radscorpions, that doesn’t seem like you’d be interested. Pretty rough material for a sweet gal like you—“

“Hey!” She pouted at him aggressively, and Nick had to force himself not to snicker when he heard Nate giggling behind him.  The girl wanted to take after her sister so badly and tried her darndest to be ‘tough’, but most of the expressions just came out hilarious or adorable (or somewhere in between). “I turned _twelve_ last month. I can take it!”

Nick cut his eyes to Piper and got an eyeroll and nod in return.  He assumed that was permission.  “Well then, lemme tell you about how I kicked deathclaw butts, huh?”

 

* * *

 

“I really don’t like this,” Nick said for the hundredth time, trailing along behind Nate as he limped around, reorganizing components. “There has to be a better way.”

Nate sighed and didn’t bother answering; he’d already made his arguments. Nick just wasn’t listening.  He had no choice.  The plans Virgil had given him were his one, true chance at getting into the Institute. He could get the Signal Interceptor put together while his stupid broken leg healed – damn that Courser – and get moving as soon as it had. He had to.

“Dang it all, I dropped my screwdriver,” Sturges bellowed from the roof of the tiny, one room shack they’d erected to house the computers for the device. “Can one of you hand it back up to me?”

Nate glanced back at Nick to make sure he was willing.  With a sigh, he moved to do so, underhand tossing the tool back up to the man on the roof.  But Nate could feel his eyes still trailing after him as he separated out the large struts and beams he’d harvested from an old power center near them, stripping them of their electronics and piling them nearby to be reused if they could.

It ended up taking them over a week even after having run all over the Commonwealth to get specialty components and structural materials. His leg was fully mended, at least, but he felt like every hour in Sanctuary was time wasted now, so close to his goal. As bolts of electricity ran over the metal and leapt from conduit to conduit, Nate felt nothing but surety and calm. This would work. He would find his son, he knew it.

“Nate, please.” Nick’s voice was more pleading than he’d ever heard it, rough and matching with the worn, frustrated anger on his face. “Please rethink this.”

“We don’t have time to discuss this, guys.  It isn’t gonna last for long!” Sturges yelled from the roof where he stood with the satellite dish, looking down at them. “The power alone can hold up for at least a few minutes longer, but the possibility of things frying goes up every second this stays online. We can shut it down if you’ve changed your mind, Nate.”

Nate shook his head, answering both of them. “I’m going.”

The expression on Nick’s face was nearly broken, glowing eyes flicking across his face. “Nate—”

Nate didn’t let himself think too deeply. He couldn’t risk backing down now, not when so much was on the line. He grabbed Nick by the shoulders and pulled him in, hugging him fiercely. “I’ll come back.”

“You got all your armor off, right? No necklaces or steel-toed boots? I don’t wanna see you get fried—” Sturges called. He leaned a bit further to look at them, cutting off when he caught sight of their embrace. “Err, pardon,” he said before withdrawing back out of sight.

Nick’s arms wrapped around his waist, squeezing him nearly painfully. “Promise me, doll. Promise this won’t go bad.”

Nate laughed weakly, face pressed to the synth’s half-ruined neck. “You know I can’t do that. But I’ll come back.”

It took him long moments to register the pressure on his temple as Nick’s lips. “You’d better,” he muttered against Nate’s skin, squeezing even tighter for a moment before releasing him.

Nate’s hand went to his wrist, to the cuff Nora had gotten him months (centuries) ago. He unclasped it without fanfare, ignoring Nick’s suddenly curious and intent gaze on his wrist. He tried to be casual about tugging his sleeve down, not rushing and trying not to care if Nick spied the odd conglomeration of characters there. “Keep track of this for me, would you? It’s important to me.”

Sturges, who had politely continued looking away even as he anxiously shifted from foot to foot, glanced back and nodded when he saw them separated. “Right, Detective, grab the grounding rod if you’re not gonna back way, way off. Too much metal in ya. Nate, get on the platform and think teleporty thoughts.”

He laughed and climbed up onto the rickety metal. “Ready.”

“You sure?” Sturges shouted over the crackle of electricity, fingers wrapped around the switch.

“Go!”

Sturges flipped the switch and nodded down to Nick. “Do it!”

And Nate was lost in a blaze of light and crack of the sound barrier.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ugh, so sorry to keep updating this and not Unintended. I am having... issues. On that note, anyone a) not mind spoilers and b) enjoy arguing pros and cons? I think I'll stop being stupid sooner if I have someone to help make up my mind ~~for me~~ between a few plot choices I have coming up.
> 
> As to this fic, we're 2-3 chapters out from the end. Not much plot in this but the romance. I'm forcing myself to stick to simple, un-subtle exposition on the world and not integrate it into a full, arching plot... because then this would go on for ages and I'd likely never finish it. :P So romance it is!
> 
> One last note: I feel like I shout warn on upcoming sexual content. Specifically, if you've been reading my Nick fics, I tend to approach his sexuality differently in everything I write. It's on purpose... my brain can think of about 100 degrees of sexuality for him from kind of ace-ish (but not totally) to robo-orgasms. I haven't yet found a plausible way for myself to write the latter, but I try to explore all sorts of in betweens. In this case, we'll be leaning more towards "can't orgasm, but can enjoy it" because, as my current partner has tried to force into my brain over the last few years, one can have plenty of fulfillment and fun from sexual contact without the finish line. So yeah, if you're more fond of ace-ish Nick, he'll be a little less so.


End file.
